title: Factors that influence fast mapping in children exposed to Spanish and English.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to determine whether children exposed to 2 languages would benefit from the phonotactic probability cues of a single language in the same way as monolingual peers and to determine whether crosslinguistic influence would be present in a fast-mapping task.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two groups of typically developing children (monolingual English and bilingual Spanish-English) took part in a computer-based fast-mapping task that manipulated phonotactic probability. Children were preschool-aged (N = 50) or school-aged (N = 34). Fast mapping was assessed through name-identification and naming tasks. Data were analyzed using mixed analyses of variance with post hoc testing and simple regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Bilingual and monolingual preschoolers showed sensitivity to English phonotactic cues in both tasks, but bilingual preschoolers were less accurate than monolingual peers in the naming task. School-aged bilingual children had nearly identical performance to monolingual peers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Knowing that children exposed to two languages can benefit from the statistical cues of a single language can help inform ideas about instruction and assessment for bilingual learners.
authors.affiliation: University of Arizona, AZ, USA. malt@email.arizona.edu
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alt
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meyers
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Figueroa
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D014825:Vocabulary
keywords: bilingual; children; phonotactic probability; word learning